Home Is Where the Home Network Is

The idea of home networking has been around for more than a decade. But now 34.4 million homes in the United States have computer networks, according to International Data Corp. Of those, 12.4 million homes have living room devices (game consoles, video recorders or set-top boxes) that are connected to the Internet.

That represents a big market opportunity and, as a result, gadget designers are more aggressive about designing Internet connectivity into their gadgets. It allows them to claim that the era of convergence - when computers, communications and consumer electronics are linked - has truly arrived, said Jonathan Steuer, an analyst at consumer research firm Iconoculture.

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